MTN, Africa’s biggest mobile phone company, has been exploring acquisitions as it seeks to boost revenue from data outside South Africa, where Vodacom Group Ltd has more subscribers.
According to Bloomberg, Johannesburg-based MTN had 59.9 million subscribers in Nigeria at the end of 2014, more than a quarter of its 223 million total across 22 countries. Visafone had about 2.2 million customers as of December, according to data compiled by the Nigerian Communications Commission.
A spokeswoman for MTN’s Nigerian unit in Lagos, Mrs. Funmilayo Onajide, in a text message yesterday, said: “We will send a holding statement at the appropriate time.”
Another top official of the GSM firm, who preferred anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on the process, confirmed to The Guardian that it was true that MTN Nigeria was eyeing Visafone.
“It is true. We are talking. The deal is likely to work and we shall come out to make official statement about the deal…soonest”, he stated.
Meanwhile, efforts to get the Corporate Communications Executive of Visafone, Joseph Oshiagale to comment, proved abortive as his mobile phone numbers were switched off as at press time.
Visafone, a Lagos-based communication firm, is a wireless network provider founded in 2007 by Jim Ovia, a Nigerian businessman who also created Zenith Bank Plc. The people asked not to be identified because the deal has yet to be announced. They didn’t give the value of the transaction.
Indeed, the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) operator, Visafone, has remained the only surviving player in the category, loosing markets to the fierce power of the GSM players, including MTN Nigeria, Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat.
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